AndroidApps.com reviews two barcode scanning and comparison shopping apps for Android phones: ShopSavvy and CompareEverywhere. I already wrote about the implications of putting an instant price-matching device in the hands of retail shoppers, but there are other interesting angles to it. These applications seem to be among the few with one or two natural business models built into them from the start. Placing contextual recommendations next to price look-up results is one; powering branded wishlists and registries is another.

When we run out of space for billboards on our roads' sides, we'll embed jingles into the pavement.

GigDoggy: "A Japanese engineer by the name of Shizuo Shinoda was the first to come up with the brilliant idea of transforming roads into a playback medium. The system works by cutting thousands of little grooves in the asphalt that produce a sound when a vehicle drives over them. The grooves are a few millimeters deep and 6 to 12 millimeters wide, and the closer you bring them together the higher the pitch will be when driven over. Production cost is about $20 000. Mr Shinoda got the idea by driving his car over markings a bulldozer had previously scraped off a street and realized he was generating a series a tones."

From WSJ (thank you, Robert): the making-of video of the Civic Musical Road in Lancaster, CA that played an overture from William Tell until nearby residents complained. It is now being rebuilt elsewhere.

WSJ: "The checkout ads range from messages encouraging shoppers to try a brand that competes with one they just bought, to others urging them to buy a new flavor of a product they buy regularly. "It's a really effective way to reach a consumer," says Brett White, head of marketing for Stouffer's, which has bought such ads for about a year. Indeed, Stouffer's said the response rate to the checkout ads for its Dinner Club was 10 times as high as for similar ads that ran in freestanding newspaper inserts."

I was googling "oil price projections" the other day and landed on a Forbes.com article that greeted me with a pop-out layer suggesting other articles related to my search. I've seen it done before on a few blogs; pretty neat. Not a bad format for a display ad, either.

Finally, the Burger King games could not have come about without an experienced and reliable game developer. Blitz Games had a long history of delivering projects on time, and had also worked on several projects involving outside stakeholders and IP holders. As such, they were well suited for the Burger King project. Despite this, Blitz still encountered several serious stumbling blocks during the course of the games’ development, learning hard-won lessons as a result:

Multiplatform development
To maximize their potential audience, Burger King wanted games that were compatible with both the original Xbox and the Xbox 360. However, they also wanted the 360 version to be more impressive than the original
Xbox version; after all, the 360 had just been released and was being marketed as a high-performance, “next generation” console.

Given the tight development time frame for the games, this took time and attention away from work that could have been put into additional game features and polish. Marketers should be aware that making a game compatible with multiple platforms—even platforms in the same line—can require significant effort, and should therefore budget and schedule accordingly.

Multiplayer challenges
Big Bumpin’ and Pocketbike Racer both include online multiplayer action—an important feature of
these games. Although online multiplayer modes can make a game much more compelling to consumers, such modes also make a game much more difficult and expensive to develop. Many developers consistently underestimate the difficulty of multiplayer development, especially on console platforms, and Blitz was no exception, though they ultimately managed to execute beautifully on Burger King’s vision. The lesson here: If you want a multiplayer game, make sure you reserve substantial time for the development and testing of that multiplayer functionality.

Different games, different assets The benefit of creating three very different games was, as mentioned earlier, the fact that it enabled Burger King to appeal to different kinds of gamers and encourage multiple trips to Burger King restaurants. However, it also forced Blitz to develop very different assets (such as art and computer code) for the three games—time and effort that could have gone into raising the overall quality of a smaller number of games, or an equal number of more similar games. While developing three very different games ultimately proved to be a great strategy for Burger King, marketers who are seeking to raise the bar and stand out from competitors in the future may want to focus their budget on projects that are more ambitious in scale, but less ambitious in scope. As always, it depends on the situation.

Brand rules and restrictionsOne of the biggest potential stumbling blocks for any game developer is something that marketers have total control over: the restrictions on how a company’s brands can be used in a game. Failure to carefully explain and explore these restrictions at the start of a game development project can wreak havoc later on.

Take the case of Sneak King. Blitz initially intended the game to be a Spy-versus-Spy-type game, with multiple Kings trying to out-deliver one another while laying traps for their opponents. After much design work, Blitz was informed that “there can be only one King.” So Blitz substantially revised the design, choosing to focus on “king of the hill”–style gameplay; whoever captures the crown gets to be King. They were then informed that “you cannot ‘become’ the King.” So Blitz adjusted yet again: One person plays the King, while the others play the remaining BK personalities, laying traps to prevent him from making deliveries. They then heard, “The King is too savvy to find himself in danger of any kind.” And so on and so forth.

Some of the trouble with Sneak King was inevitable; it is impossible for marketers to predict every possible brand usage that a developer might propose. However, some of these brand-related missteps could have been avoided with clearer upfront communication. In particular, given the action-oriented nature of many video games, it was probably not hard to guess that “the King might find himself in danger.” Marketers would do well to put time, upfront, into deciding and communicating what basic attributes of their brands are truly inviolable.

The Burger King promotion was expensive. In addition to the cost of developing the games themselves, Burger King had to pay distribution fees, promotional fees, and other nondevelopment expenses. In fact, the total cost of the promotion was ultimately many times the cost of game development itself, though it’s worth noting that Burger King recouped a significant percentage of its costs by selling the games for $3.99. Given the effort and financial resources necessary to support an initiative of this scope, marketers wanting to emulate Burger King’s success must be prepared to treat their initiative as a key one for their company. Otherwise, the risks of an expensive failure prove too great. Fortunately, as demonstrated by Burger King, the benefits of a well-managed advergame initiative are even greater.

Burger King also made the decision to sell the games at $3.99, an extremely low price for disc-based (as opposed to downloadable) Xbox games but, as it turned out, a potentially much better price than “free.” By choosing to charge even a small sum, Burger King seems to have sent a message to consumers that its games had real value, unlike other advergames they might have played and been disappointed by in the past. Burger King further supported the games with a strong marketing campaign that included advertisements shown during Saturday Night Live and during NFL games. All this sent a very clear message to consumers: “There is something of value waiting for you at Burger King.”

Furthermore, Burger King wisely decided to spread its bets by appealing to as broad an audience as possible. The company attracted “gift givers” and more casual gamers by pricing the games cheaply. It attracted enthusiasts by taking advantage of Microsoft’s phenomenally successfully “achievement” system, which awards gamers points when they play games, and by building multiplayer functionality into two of the three games. And lastly, by creating three very different games, Burger King made sure it had something to offer any customer, no matter how narrow their interest in game genres might be.

The games were also so successful because Microsoft and Burger King had motivated and empowered project champions involved in the process.

Within Microsoft, that champion was Chris Di Cesare, formerly Director of Marketing for Xbox. In Di Cesare’s words, “The scale of the agencies and people involved in this promotion was immense. We’re talking PR firms, ad agencies, online firms, game developer and publisher, and promotion agencies on both sides. It easily could have devolved into fiefdoms, but everyone checked their egos at the door and focused on Burger King’s very clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish. Everyone fell in line because of Burger King’s passion for this project. However, the Burger King guys were total novices when it came to game development, so it became my job to translate their desires to the great many groups within Microsoft that needed to work together for this to happen. In other words, Burger King had an internal evangelist in me.”

So, on one hand, MySpace is expected to hit $1B in ad revenue for the year. On the other hand, the click-through rates for the site are 3-5 clicks for 10,000 impressions (0.03% CTR; from this source and my own experience). At $3 per 1000 impressions, that's $30 for 5 clicks. Not bad.

With ListensToYou, David hopes to improve the online advertising market by giving users control over the ads they want to see. If you want to take a closer look at ListensToYou to understand David's approach, you can use the invitation code "adverlab" (limited to the first 100 sign-ups).

Ideally, users would be offered explicit control over ads they do and do not see on ANY website they visit across the internet.

We think it is possible to increase the relevance of internet ads as well as our trust in the websites we frequent. We have created a concept that allows for more consumer power and less misplaced advertising by offering customers a tool to express their preferences (categories, keywords or profiles) specifically for the purposes of connecting them with products and services they may want or need. Websites that adhere to these user-selected declarations of ad appropriateness are allowed to put a badge on their website indicating that they “follow customer-friendly ad practices.”

We’re calling this service ListensToYou and we are interested in feedback, ideas and concerns that you have as public consumers of information, services and products.

Customer-friendly ad practices could, first, go a long way toward removing the irrelevance and mistrust issues of online advertising. Rather than backward-looking behavioral targeting, users would update settings as their lives and preferences change; rather than stereotypes created by context and demographics, explicitly stated preferences pick up anomalies and get past the typical ad clickers in the typical places.

Consumers would have one convenient, trusted place online to express the desirability and appropriateness of advertising categories or specific product and service offers that they could update or delete any time they would like.

They would not only get more relevant ads but also be given a place to have a fair transaction of giving information in exchange for getting advertisements – a place in the conversation that they would feel good about. Publishers would avoid wasted impressions and improve click thru rates and quality leads by serving more relevant, trusted ads. They could even open their sites to new types of advertisers as they understand the varied preferences of their user base.

I mentioned earlier that there was no signal between publishers and consumers to indicate that the ads on a website were safe, appropriate or potentially influenced or controlled by users. The ListensToYou badge indicates and certifies that a publisher adheres to consumer-friendly advertising practices. That is, the website respects consumer-stated levels of ad appropriateness and they ensure that ads do not violate user expectations (open up multiple hard-to-close ad windows, for example).

ListensToYou serves as a validation that the publisher brings the user into the conversation about what ad content is appropriate for them, specifically, and a certification that it serves ads that are safe to click. Therefore, publishers are able to signal that they are willing to listen and brands can choose to advertise on sites that listen – building trust even when users don’t use the ListensToYou service.

Market and non-market forces are moving quickly to “fix” some of the problems of online advertising. Regulators are considering controls on behavioral targeting and more consumer tools are being developed to block ads or allow users to browse the internet with complete anonymity. Meanwhile, online advertisers are creating smarter ways to gather and use implicit information to target ads.

ListensToYou and consumer-friendly ad practices aren’t a replacement for those things, but they are a necessary improvement that brings the user’s explicit choice of content back into the equation in a meaningful way.

Prior to founding his company, David Rostan worked in marketing and strategy for technology and ecommerce companies. He has earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

Advertisers continually update targeting and tracking strategies in order to improve effectiveness and consumer receptivity. More often than not, however, these improvements actually reproduce the problems of trust and relevancy they mean to solve. One option for increasing relevancy involves creating better algorithms. Better algorithms, though, require better data—and right now, that means more tracking across more online and offline activities.

Alternatively, ad companies can increase relevancy by using user profile data to target ads, but this approach violates trust. I don’t fill out a profile so that advertisers can mine and analyze my personal data, I fill it out to customize my content. Moreover, the sites I use to network or find friends are not the most relevant sites for the items I want or the brands I trust.

In general, as long as a consumer feels “tracked” or “targeted,” the ad’s level of relevancy is going to be, well… irrelevant.

From the perspective of the consumer, who tires of unnecessary diaper ads or prices to fly to Paris after she’s already returned from her trip, it may very well seem that advertisers should not track at all. Actually, this option doesn’t help marketers or consumers. Advertisers would find another way to target users and/or force them to view and click ads (even if only to close the ad). Not tracking at all forces more, not less, invasive ad tactics.

One model of advertising asks for users to vote on the ads they see, offering the illusion that customers could potentially self-style their ad content. Not so. This ad style simply GIVES more information to the advertiser. The consumer input is never compensated because that information is just factored into the advertising model rather than adhered to. Plus, it does not allow for a user to change his mind: if the ad model did respond to a user’s voting choice by removing an ad, the ad could not be re-served later to give the user a chance to say that they want it, now. In short, none of these advertising alternatives offer consumers a real choice; they generally violate trust and, no matter how much they gather personally relevant information, they still can’t guarantee relevancy.

(to be continued)

With ListensToYou, David Rostan hopes to improve the online advertising market by giving users control over the ads they want to see. Prior to founding his company, David worked in marketing and strategy for technology and ecommerce companies. He has earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

If you want to take a closer look at ListensToYou to understand David's approach, you can use the invitation code "adverlab" (limited to the first 100 sign-ups).

GigaOm has confirmed the ad buy by the Obama campaign in Burnout: Paradise, an Xbox Live racing game. (Update: AP says there are nine EA games in the buy, including Madden 09.)

Also, check out Pork Invaders, McCain campaign's advergame on Facebook and a clone of a GOP game "Tax Invaders" from the 2004 cycle, which, of course, itself was a clone of an 80s arcade blockbuster. Here's some NYT's background on political advergaming. (Shoot some pork with embeddable version of the game below).

This is the first part of the guest post by David Rostan, the co-founder and president of ListensToYou. With ListensToYou, David hopes to improve the online advertising market by giving users control over the ads they want to see. Prior to founding his company, David worked in marketing and strategy for technology and ecommerce companies. He has earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

If you want to take a closer look at ListensToYou to understand David's approach, you can use the invitation code "adverlab" (limited to the first 100 sign-ups).

Most consumers realize that there is a tradeoff they make between getting things they want online (anything from news to product offers) and the protection of private information. However, it is currently only framed as a tradeoff between letting companies know things about you (in a pejorative way) and getting things you want; we’re missing the opportunity to maximize everyone’s benefit through a fair, consumer-controlled transaction.

To stop the flow of personal information, users employ anonymizers, delete cookies and participate in the outcry over online privacy. This really begs the question “what are companies doing that makes users want to be invisible to them?” The answer is that companies are gathering more data and creating better predictive algorithms to reach (or trick) customers instead of listening to (or even asking) what they want.

Internet users enjoy control over content in a way not previously possible in other media. What they read and consume, the time of day or night they consume it and the format in which they view the information are highly customizable.

Yet, in the most consumer-driven medium ever, internet users are still completely left out of the conversation in one main area of internet content – advertising. While I may be able to choose a website, an author or an article, video or post, I cannot exert any control over the ads I will see surrounding my chosen content.

Publishers need to monetize their sites, but advertisers, brand marketers and publishers are all cast in a bad light when customers feel mistargeted or stereotyped or feel that their private information has been abused. Exploiting user information is not the way to build good relationships with customers: advertisers lose because people won’t click ads; brand marketers lose because users won’t form positive associations with the advertising companies; and publishers lose because mistrusted ads are a constant drag on the website’s brand and revenue source.

This “everybody loses” situation is an over-arching problem with online advertising: web users cannot control what personal information (their habits, interests, behaviors, etc.) they trade for the online activities they value (product and service offers, socializing, local event notification, etc.) and, therefore, do not get things they value or trust the ads they do get.

An Example: A user may be required to give her age (34) to register to use a website. She agrees because the website claims that this is to insure that children do not use websites without supervision – i.e. as a safety precaution – but then she sees the information used to target her with ads for children’s clothing (she’s happily single with no kids). So, the ad is not only irrelevant, but it is also a surprise to her that her age is being used in a way she did not intend. She stops looking at ads, has a mistrust of the website brand, has a mistrust of the advertiser and, even when served appropriate ads, still carries a perception that the ad is not trustworthy or not for her.

The flaws in online advertising can be described as problems of relevance and trust. Relevancy has been greatly improved by behavioral targeting (even if privacy has not), but behavioral targeting is backward-looking. If you used the internet for a recent house purchase, for example, you really know what I mean. How long will you be receiving and ignoring those mortgage ads?

Contextual ads and demographic data are also used to produce relevancy in advertising, but site context is only a stereotype and demographic information is a best-guess. Just because a 54-year old reads blogs about classical music does not mean that he wants to buy retirement property more than he wants to buy the newest Nike sneakers.

To a consumer, relevancy is not only about getting what he wants, it is also about seeing what he expects. Relevancy is about expectation and emotion, but the content and subject matter of advertisements cannot always be consistent with user’s interpretation of the content and subject matter of the website, making the user feel that the website publisher does not understand why she visits the site.

Trust is even more emotional. If the user does not feel that he has consented to the ad or the information used to serve it, he consciously or subconsciously mistrusts the brands that brought it to him.

The hot topic in trust and advertising is behavioral tracking, of course. Tracking scares consumers and may invade their privacy. A relevant ad often signals to us that THIS is the brand that is tracking me the most, which is bad for any brand. Further, consumers have no control over or protection from unwanted or inappropriate advertising content: they have been removed from the discussion and forbidden from making those decisions.

This lack of empowerment, itself, destroys trust whether the online ads are “appropriate” or not. Even widely respected online publishers suffer the consequences because they have no way to lend their own brand credibility to the ads served on their sites. Publishers are often unable or unwilling to vouch for all ads that are served and, even if that were not the case, there is no understood signal to do so.

An advergame worthy of purchase must be a cut above the usual advergaming fare. Creating such a game requires close cooperation between an advertiser and a game developer. That can be a challenge for companies not accustomed to game development, but the end result is worth the effort. The Burger King promotion illustrates both the benefits and the risks of undertaking such a complex project.

In late 2006, Burger King began selling three games: a multiplayer racing game called Pocketbike Racer, a bumper-car game called Big Bumpin’, and an oddly compelling game called Sneak King, in which players must sneak up on hungry strangers and surprise them with a burger.

The games were playable on both the original Xbox and the Xbox 360, with upgraded graphics on the latter console, and were all developed in just eight months. By all accounts, it’s a miracle that the games were even finished on time, much less at any reasonable level of quality.

Philip Oliver, the CEO of Blitz Games and a longtime industry veteran, doesn’t pull any punches when describing the entire project, which was awarded to Blitz by Microsoft and Burger King earlier that year: “Burger King’s ambitions for the games evolved substantially over the life of the project. If someone had told me ‘You have eight months to write three Xbox games, which also must run on the Xbox 360, and can’t simply be a port to the 360 but must actually look better, even though the 360 hardware isn’t fully finished yet,’ I simply wouldn’t have signed up for it. That being said, I’m delighted with how it all turned out!” As well he should have been, given the 40% increase in Burger King’s profits during the quarter in which the games were released.

Many factors drove the success of the Burger King games.

Chief among these was the recognition by all parties involved that the games needed to be fun first, and serve as advertisements second. In Oliver’s words, “Burger King wanted nothing more than to provide players with a great deal of fun and a lot of laughs—it would be pure coincidence that the games took place in the Burger King universe.”

Fortunately, the Burger King universe happens to be a rather bizarre and interesting place, thanks in no small part to the energy the company has invested into characters such as the King and the Subservient Chicken. Dr. Stacy Wood, Professor of Marketing for the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina, summed up Burger King’s approach: “There wasn’t a heavy sell with these games. Consumers thought they were getting a fun experience—not a sales pitch. For brands that have some kitsch value—some cultural capital—this is a great way to connect with consumers. When turning off the highway, their instinct to eat at Burger King, instead of another fast-food restaurant across the street, is going to be driven by a very fast decision that is influenced,in large part, by warm feelings like ‘Burger King is fun.’”

Here's a press release from Keynote Systems that got 75 people to complete assorted web-based tasks on their iPhones -- a fairly typical usability set-up. One of the top bullet points in the press release: "advertising on the mobile web not compelling for users to click through." But if you look further down, one of the company's findings is that "only four percent of users tapped into advertising; nearly a quarter noticed advertising but did not click through."

What do they mean by "tapped"? A 4-percent click-through? How much of it can be attributed to mis-clicks?

An earlier press-release by the ad network AdMob: "Ads on the iPhone deliver strong engagement for advertisers with triple, on average, the already high click-through-rates seen on mobile."

YouTube blog: "Today [Oct.7], we're taking our first steps to providing YouTube users with this kind of instant gratification, by adding "click-to-buy" links to the watch pages of thousands of YouTube partner videos. Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features."

Apparently, not all of the wrinkles have been ironed out yet. The Sims 2 trailer above has an Amazon link to Spore (both games are by EA that is among YouTube's new partners). YouTube's aff id with Amazon is you09f-20 (probably one of many).

Incidentally, a similar affiliate model could work for Facebook, if the virtual gifts stats are any indication. See how Birthday Calendar app inserts a Send Flowers affiliate link to 1-800-Flowers.

Google In-Game Advertising is not really in-game, it's more like those pre-rolls they are trying with YouTube. Hope it's not what the Adscape deal and all those cool patents for targeting players based on their in-game behavior are for.

An article from last February in Chicago Business News with some details about Obama's campaign logo, created by Sender: "Sender LLC landed the logo project through mo/de, a Chicago design firm working with AKP Message & Media of Chicago. Political consultant David Axelrod, who is working on Obama's campaign and worked on his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, is a partner with AKP Message & Media."

Also, check out Logobama , a fan site where you can create your very own version of the logo. Here's also a DIY tutorial .

Widely praised, but not without it's share of controversy, of course: "Kind of amusing that Barack Hussein Obama’s campaign logo can be seen to feature both a crescent and a curved Islamic scimitar:"